In a recent HITMC Lightning Presentation, our friends from FINN Partners highlighted how you can refine your content strategy into something that is engaging, works in today’s environment, and keeps people’s attention. Below are a few of the highlights that Ritesh Patel, Sr. Partner, Global Digital Health, Beth Friedman, Sr. Partner, & Erin Wabol, Vice President at FINN Partners shared with us.
Goldfish Beat Modern Audiences’ Attention Spans
Beth kicked us off with the fun fact that goldfish had the shortest attention span of all creatures (five seconds), but modern website visitors have taken the crown with an average attention span of only THREE seconds. This is a big challenge for marketers to overcome.
So, in order to keep today’s audience engaged and coming back for more, Beth says your content has to be relevant, engaging, and something that they can’t resist. She likened this to your favorite show on Netflix. Her favorite binge-worthy show is New Amsterdam. And it ranks top shelf with her because it’s relevant to her profession and human interests, it’s timely, and keeps her going back for more.
Design the Entire Experience Not Just the Content
Ritesh chimed in to talk about how you can make your content perform. Today we get peppered (or sometimes sprayed) with content everywhere we look. Couple that with that fact that our attention spans are so short, it’s crucial to think of the overall experience when it comes to content. Ritesh explains that we need to think about who it is that you’re trying to reach, what you’re going to say to them, and where you will be interacting with them online. It’s important to think about designing the entire experience not just the content piece.
A Good Old-Fashion Content Mapping Exercise
But exactly how do we do that? Erin shared that conducting a good old-fashioned content mapping exercise is extremely helpful. Some of her first steps when doing a content mapping exercise is to use the data we have at our disposal. Look at your prospect data, talk to your sales teams and operations managers, and take the time to learn what is really going on in the field. Use this information to map it to your customer’s journey.
Erin shared that quite often we get so consumed with what WE want to say as opposed to what people want to hear. Content mapping is a really good way to ask yourself “what does this group want to hear about us and on what platform or channel would this be relevant.”
Back When the Newspaper was King
The next step is to determine the optimum channels and platforms you need to use to engage with the right audience. Ritesh chose an image from 1987 of the Atlanta Journal Constitution as his background because at that time there was only one place you went to get your content out to the masses – the newspaper.
But today we have so many channels, platforms and mediums to choose from, that it is critical to define from your content map which channels and platforms are right for each piece of content.
Someone Else’s Journey, Isn’t Always Our Journey
Not everyone is going to have the same journey. Doing content mapping allows you to build out different journeys for your audiences. It also lets you form a strategy that you can tweak and change on an ongoing basis, but at the end of the day, all roads lead back to this map. From the execution standpoint, it gives you a clear path and helps to give you a source of truth when managing your content to make sure it’s on the right platform, served up to the right people.
Erin highlighted that as marketers we spend a lot of time on our personas, what the journey is, and where we need to be in the funnel. With a mapping exercise, it can keep you honest and focused even if you do need to change course.
Measurement Matters
The team wrapped up their talk by conveying the importance of measuring the effectiveness of your content strategy. It’s important to know when things are working and even more important when things AREN’T working.
This allows you to double down on the things that are working on certain platforms and things that aren’t. You may have created a video that cost a lot of money, but if it’s not working, it may be something that needs to be pulled and replaced.
Before investing a significant amount of time and effort into a particular content piece or area of interest, take the time to look at your data to really understand what the market’s needs.
You can watch FINN Partner’s entire presentation here:
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